Archive for Jun 2004 – Sep 2007 of bits and pieces of daily living on island by a foreigner married to an Okinawan for 40 years.

Well, it’s been about two months since the opening of the long awaited for MusicTown project. A big hit in the complex seems to be the Wendy’s Hamburgers chain outlet. Many people really don’t know what the facility is about and for those of you who are interested, here’s a link to one of the Japanese language pages. Simply place the address in one of the on-line translators and that will provide a rough outlook at the entertainment production classes being conducted at the facility. Translated pages of further information can be attained by simply right clicking links on the tranlated page.

ION (in other news)…the second half of the outerlying Typhoon Wipha stream, which broke apart near Palau, has turned into another tropical storm system (14W). It doesn’t seem to be forecast to hit this area, but is supposed to track somewhere between the Philippines and Taiwan for now. Oh, typhoon season……

I just upgraded to the new WordPress 2.2.1 . If you run into any problems or bugs please let me know. Thank you.

Also, it’s that time of year again. Although it’s hard to believe that 24 years have passed since I attended that first outdoor Rockfest concert on the weed-whacked hill up north (an area now in the vicinity of a golf coarse), the 25th annual RockFest is to be held on July 7 and 8 (Saturday and Sunday), 2007. This year it’s being billed as the pre-celebration to the long-awaited for (10 years in the making) MusicTown project. Among some of the venues MusicTown will house (from what I’ve been told) are an entertainment training facility for both management and artists, various independent vendor facitlites, and a standing-only live concert hall for visiting national “big name” concerts (unlike the parallel street’s Korinza entertainment facility, which houses a sit-down theater-style hall). Another aspect that seperates MusicTown is that it is a government-sponsored facility, unlike most of the other live music venues (about a dozen or so) in the area, which are independently-owned private facilties, each having its own style and characteristics. With the RockFest, comes that annual influx of tourists in the area. So…expect many of your regular neighborhood haunts to be a bit more crowded and busier than usual during the festivities.

When I was attended university, one of the mandatory reads was Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. If you’ve never had the opportunity to peruse the short story, do yourself a favor and start the day off with a brief, yet poignant, read.